Like his previous feature, "Jealousy," the film is shot in sumptuous black-and-white and revolves around artistic Parisians. But in its elegant almost threadbare simplicity, it's a more effective story, anchored by three persuasive performances and a sly sense of irony.

A handsomely mounted, graceful production that is well-played across the board.

Sachs has pulled off a film of inferences and intimations, thanks largely to the casting of accomplished actors.

At its most absorbing, Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles makes it clear there are no easy answers, perhaps especially when the art itself isn’t easy.

It's hard to imagine a more serious or persuasive indictment of the horrors inflicted on children by sexual abuse than Mysterious Skin.

Though one enjoys and appreciates Rush for what it is, it does not thrill the blood the way we have the right to expect a film like this to do.

The shiveringly memorable Smooth Talk may be the first film to get adolescence in America right, down to the last, delicate seismographic tremor. What it knows about the age will scare adults to death, because these film makers remember , as clearly as Joyce Carol Oates did when she wrote the short story from which “Smooth Talk” was made.

Mean Creek's greatest asset is its sense of truth. It doesn't pander to or indulge its characters like the teen films we're used to. It looks at them straight ahead and with respect. It's something you wish Hollywood, and even parents, did more often.

If you feel like you've already read quite a bit about the documentary Bully, you have. But that still won't prepare you for the experience of seeing it.

Wu is confident enough to make the bold strokes her characters speak of and craft a movie that’s comfortably different.

Full of stunning views of China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan and showing an unexpected side of Genghis Kahn, Mongol feels like an old-fashioned epic.

A stunningly beautiful object offered in tribute to a holy man, a gorgeous film that is nevertheless burdened by the defects of its virtues. Careful and respectful, it is everything a movie about the Dalai Lama should be except dramatically involving.

It's predictable, painless, occasionally amusing fluff perked up by a clever visual interplay with the book text and John Cleese's avuncular narration.

It doesn’t evade every trap or trapping of convention, but its tenderness of touch is matched by a remarkable toughness of mind.

Munich's even-handed cry for peace is not an act of equivocation but one of bravery. What Munich has to say, and its ability to say it to the widest possible audience, couldn't be more needed than it is right now.

Lovesong is a character study of this relationship, casually yet carefully sketched out by Kim in subtle but meaningful gestures and glances. Much is communicated through the eyes, searching for answers in the void of what’s not said, but felt.

As crafted by Bahrani, this fascinating portrait of a hero/villain who comes across as both affable and unpleasant, often simultaneously, is a Greek tragedy and a Shakespearean comedy with a touch of “Tiger King” all expertly rolled into one all-too-pertinent cautionary tale.

M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity succeeds where so many documentaries about artists fail: It provides real insight into the art. It’s a welcome trip for those fascinated by his iconic, mind-bending depictions of illusions, evolutions and eternal cycles.

You could read Thelma as a saga of Sapphic liberation, a fiery critique of religious patriarchy or perhaps yet another superhero’s traumatic origin story; it’s graceful and ambiguous enough to support each of these readings. But the more possibilities the movie seems to entertain, the more its cumulative power seems to dissipate.

Westmoreland means to celebrate Colette the literary titan and bisexual pioneer, and to dissolve your initial outrage at her mistreatment in a warm bath of feel-good satisfaction. But he also wants to paint a lively, credible portrait of a genuinely complicated marital arrangement and to show how one woman’s genius could flourish even amid so much oppression and compromise.

The punk and metal music-infused soundtrack belies the film’s largely gentle approach to a series of small, evocative and well-played moments that combine to slowly heal the Lunsfords and prove that you can go home again.

The trappings are thriller-ish, but the playing field is recognizably timely: a fast-changing economic/cultural world in which some youth are up for the challenge to reconcile a vanished past with a roiling present — France's terrorism woes are explicitly referenced — while others are dangerously indifferent to it.

Nimbly directed by Jeff Rowe (“The Mitchells vs. the Machines”) from a funny, perceptive script he wrote with Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit, this rambunctious action-comedy gives nostalgia-stoking, action-figure-selling, comic-book-derived franchise relaunches a good name.

Despite being a pure fantasy that relishes not making literal sense, Millions retains a conviction about what it's doing that makes us believe and enjoy.

As Lelio's earlier films demonstrated, the director's style is restrained but potent, which helps the impact of the actors' performances as well as the picture's fairly graphic love scene. The possibilities for these characters are more varied than it initially seems, and "Disobedience" thoughtfully considers them all.

A comedy of the most delicately balanced perfection.

Above all a man's confrontation with self in middle-age and his need to accept the fact that his children, beyond their mixed ancestry, are after all native-born English citizens.

Has a great deal of the unapologetically broad and silly comedy.